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This Week’s Issue

Community, Opinion

THROUGH THE PORTAL

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Written by

Trevor Ammundsen

Published on

January 14, 2025

I’ve a feeling 25 is going to be a good year

BY TREVOR AMMUNDSEN

I should start by acknowledging the Who’s Pete Townsend who wrote the lyric line that forms this week’s title. He was writing about 1921, over a century ago, whereas I have adapted it for the year we have just started. The last few years, since 2021, have been bad ones for New Zealand. Despite the proclamations of the Labour Government COVID deaths still occurred, 6966 as at 15th December 2024. And, as predicted by many, Grant Robertson and his team successfully smashed our economy and we have yet to recover properly. So why do I think we are going to have a good year? It’s because people that matter will read this article and gain some insight.

The most important good ideas must be directed at the economy where we need a leadership that shows courage and the ability to think. We cannot continually run the country at a loss and expect to do better for our people. So we need to cut costs and one way we can do this is by means testing benefits, including superannuation. I realise that many people rely on their fortnightly super payment but many don’t need it. Our Deputy Prime Minister receives a salary of $354,100 – does he need Super on top of this? Our richest people are worth billions, do they need it. The list is long and the savings would be significant if means testing was implemented. The current government has started to look at our bureaucratic costs and this is to be commended, but should be escalated, and faster. Just get rid of the dead wood. I have looked through a list of Government Ministries, there are 32, hundreds more if you look for Departments, many of which seem unnecessary, double ups or just confusing as to purpose. Let’s just agree on the functions we want our Government to carry out and trim our Ministries down to the size needed.

The Government needs to start earning funds from our national balance sheet. To explain this, imagine using any surplus monies you have saved to build a house that you then give to someone to live in. By not charging rent you make no money from this exercise so plenty of people will want you to build a house for them. If you charge rent it becomes a different exercise, you earn money which you can use to build other houses, pay for your grandchildren’s education or whatever pleases you. Our Government needs to use partnerships with other parties, ones with significant funds, to construct the infrastructure we need. It also needs to consider how all partners involved with such infrastructure are reimbursed, tolls for roading, rentals for buildings etc.

Having got these two items underway our financial managers need to develop real courage and severely attack the tax system. We need to migrate from operational taxes (wages and companies) that significantly hurt the aspirational and needy to a tax system that is more asset focused (financial movements, capital gains) that generally focus on those more able to pay. There you go, three things for our Finance Minister to get her teeth into, wonder if she is brave enough.

There are other things our politicians could do to benefit the country. First off, why can’t they work as a team for the benefit of the whole Country, with a few personal biases for sure, but work as a team to get gains for us all. We could make a good start by having Te Pāti Māori drop their juvenile Treaty Terrorist theatrics and actually work with the rest of the Government on policies of improvement, not just demanding bags of money. Most other parties could make similar improvements. We need continuity of improvement in New Zealand, not constant bickering and change.

We could go on about improvements to our Government’s performance but that is a fair bit for them to be getting on with. If they want to drop me a note I can give them some other ideas though.

OUR ALL BLACKS

The next most important issue to be addressed though is the performance of the All Blacks. The 2024 year was pretty average, below average maybe. Attention has to go on to the coach, Scott Robertson who probably acknowledges that he too had an average year. This year will be better as Scott will have learnt from 2024 that you cannot just pick Crusaders and expect international performances. A number he picked just aren’t at that grade. The core of the pack were fine but Scott Barrett probably realises that Ardie Savea needs to be appointed as captain; we all do. Ardie will also move to open side and Hoskins Sotutu should come in at Number 8, which along with Sititi at Blindside, gives us a world class forward pack for the next few years. A few changes are needed in the backs, the most obvious at Centre where Billy Proctor needs to be given a run and at First Five where Damien McKenzie needs the job full time. Other than that Scott just needs to drop Crusaders that aren’t up to it (there are a couple) and all will be good to go.

So if the people that are in charge listen to good advice we will be good to go, significant improvement in our economy and sporting improvement. The only other thing that needs urgent care is our Local Government in the Coromandel, but fortunately we have an election for that.